#theodor evans

⚠️CONTENT WARNING: Violence and death

Frederick, Theodor, and the boys’ cousin, Maximiliano, were assigned, along with another soldier, to track down a small group of aviators who had gone missing after a bombing accident that had occurred days earlier. Theodor seemed excited to finally get out of the camp for a while, he felt like he would go insane at any moment if he had to spend one more day staring at that endless sea of green tents covered in mud.

Freddy, on the other hand, couldn’t bring himself to feel the same excitement while surrounded by so much destruction. As he scanned the ruins of what had, not long ago, been a quiet little farming town, he swore he saw a figure pass by. Before he could say anything about it to the others, the boys heard a voice calling out to them.

“Hey, over here.” The voice said, echoing from behind the door of one of the buildings, and Theodor nearly stumbled back when he realized it was a woman. Why the hell was that girl dressed like an aviator?

“Are you part of the group we came to rescue?” Maximiliano asked, noticing the girl’s uniform. It fit her perfectly, which ruled out the possibility that she had stolen it from a man. Besides, she looked like she knew what she was doing.

“There is no group, just me and a cadet. My copilot and two of the cadets who were with us died in the crash. I was lucky to walk away from it, but my partner wasn’t.” She explained, then pointed to a man in his forties lying among the rubble in an improvised shelter made from the clothes of the dead and sleeping bags. They had cauterized the stump of his severed arm to stop the bleeding, but from his unhealthy color, it clearly wasn’t doing much good.

“So that’s why you didn’t return to your base? You can’t carry him?” Theodor asked, approaching the man and calling for Freddy’s help to lift him, but his brother didn’t respond, still too focused on the feeling that they weren’t alone.

“That’s not the problem. There are still some of the bastards who shot down our plane. If they didn’t attack you, it means they’re either fewer in number or out of ammunition. Those sons of bitches surrounded us, as if the bombing wasn’t enough, they also had machine guns on the ground. But we gave them a good fight. Old Hortis there didn’t stop shooting while he still had strength in his wrists. If there are five of them left, that’s a lot.”

“Well, for someone with such a delicate face, you sure curse like a sailor,” Theodor joked, fascinated by the figure in front of him, and he could swear he got a growl in response. “Mind telling me what someone like you is doing here? And what’s your name, anyway?”

“I’m doing the exact same thing as you, just better.” She replied, her expression annoyed and impatient, like someone who had already dealt with more questions about her capabilities than she could count. Theodor looked a bit embarrassed and seemed to apologize with his eyes, which made her take a deep breath before answering, “My name is Goldie.”

Before Theodor could introduce himself, they heard gunfire, and then a grenade exploded in the distance, filling the air with fire and smoke.

“Is that them? Bastards…” Frederick asked, startled, firing as fast as he could in the direction the shots seemed to be coming from.

All five of them, including the frail Mr. Hortis, returned fire, and they could swear they had taken one down. As they tried to protect the injured man, a thin figure attempted to sneak through the rubble and aim at the group. Theodor cocked his weapon, struggling to see through the smoke. He saw sunlight reflecting off the enemy’s gun barrel, then a bullet whizzed past his face before he could pull the trigger, then another, and another.

Goldie took the man down before Theodor even understood what was happening.

Albert left a paradise in the form of a tropical forest and was thrown into a trench before he could count to five. He was glad his twin had been assigned to his battalion, but the two boys worried about their older brothers.

The nights in the trench were so cold they hurt, and during the heat of the day the stench of waste filled the air. Their enemies were cowards, always starting firefights in the early hours of the morning, bombarding them with smoke grenades that made them cough for days, and forcing them to spend hours firing wildly without even having had time for breakfast.

Albert didn’t want to die, he knew he didn’t, but he was tired, tired of everything, and when the whole world around you is on fire, you begin to lose the energy to put out the flames and start wishing to be consumed by them all at once. He kept responding to every attack with his weapon in hand, his survival instinct taking over, but his rational side felt a certain envy every time one of his comrades had his head blown apart.

It was a great relief when they were assigned to escort supplies to an allied base, and an even greater relief when they saw that Freddy, Teddy, and Maximiliano would be going with them. The five of them exchanged updates about their families as they walked through those deserted pastures, when Theodor noticed a small shadow crossing the sky, and before he could fully realize it was a grenade, it was already hitting the ground.

Theodor began desperately searching for his brothers amid the smoke and dust as gunfire started raining down on him. He tried to fight back, but he couldn’t see anything and feared hitting one of his companions by accident. He felt like a worm crawling on the ground, and his heart nearly stopped when he saw that red-haired body lying there, but he felt a flicker of relief when he realized it was Teddy, not Freddy.

When he found his twin in the middle of that chaos, Theodor used all his strength to lift him into his arms and ran as fast as he could, leaving the others behind. There was no time for heroism or bravery, he needed to make sure at least one of his brothers survived, that was all that mattered.

⚠️CONTENT WARNING: Death

That was the first time all four brothers were together in the war, and it definitely could have been under better circumstances. The Austrians seemed quite eager, you could never tell when those bastards would decide to attack, so as a precaution they kept their rifles ready at the slightest sound.

“Thomas,” Freddy called his brother one night, sounding worried. “If something happens to me...”

“Nothing is going to happen to you. Stop thinking nonsense and get some rest,” Thomas replied, cutting him off. He didn’t want to have that kind of conversation.

“We see men dying right beside us every single day! I need you to listen to me. If I die here, I need you to look for Catherine Lindson,” Frederick pleaded.

“Lindson?” Thomas asked. He didn’t want to hear it, but he recognized the name. “Isn’t she Winifred’s mother?” he questioned, and Freddy nodded. He had always wondered what had become of the girl, but had never managed to establish contact.

“Winifred didn’t handle childbirth well. You know, she was very young at the time, only fourteen. She grew weak and passed away less than six months later.”

“The child...?” Thomas asked cautiously, knowing it was a delicate subject.

“A girl, Daisy. She looks just like me, you’d be startled if you saw her,” Freddy replied with a soft, almost foolish smile. His expression lightened for a moment before turning serious again. “She lives with her grandmother, Catherine. If I die, you’ll inherit everything I have. I know you have a good heart and will do the right thing, so please make sure Daisy is taken care of.”

“Of course!”

Thomas’s words had barely finished echoing in the air when gunfire erupted. Those bastards really never got tired, did they?

The darkness of the night made it nearly impossible to see their targets, but it didn’t stop them from firing wildly in their direction. Albert thought he saw a helmet among the shadows, he had to squint, but he managed to make out the head of one of those Austrian vermin. However, he hadn’t fired yet when a bullet cut through the air beside his face, and it seemed to be coming toward him rather than away.

“THEODOR!” he screamed in desperation, grabbing his brother’s body, trying to keep him from collapsing, and he felt himself lose control as he noticed his twin grow stiff, losing color and warmth in his arms. Albert desperately cocked his rifle and then fired frantically into the darkness, as if killing as many enemies as possible could somehow make the corpse beside him disappear.

Theodor and Albert were found! The boys were safe and were welcomed back with great excitement, being seen as heroes by the others. Of course, no one needed to know they had actually run away like cowards.

Goldie, in particular, seemed very emotional about Theodor’s return, and finally gave in to the boy’s constant requests for them to go out for a drink.

Goldie was probably the most fascinating woman Theodor had ever met, not that he had met many women. Theodor didn’t share Freddy’s libertine side and was usually more busy tormenting girls than trying to win them over. Goldie didn’t seem to have a very good impression of Theodor, but she certainly had a strong one, and in the end, the boy’s efforts to get her attention really paid off.